In the not so distant future the government will have have a database with everyone's dna. It's just not possible to keep something secret that you literally shed everywhere you go.
There's an important difference between physically being able to keep something secret, and legally being able to keep something secret.
For instance: today the government has the physical ability to break into my house and shoot me in the head for no reason at all, but they don't have the legal ability to do so. Likewise, they have the physical ability to illegally obtain evidence, but not the legal ability to use that evidence to convict someone at trial.
The rules aren't meaningless but they also don't stop the government from assassinating you if they decide that works out best for them.
Isn't that exactly what they did to Breonna Taylor in Louisville? Haven't seen anyone arrested for that.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/23/us/breonna-taylor-ex-officer-...
Now you have:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62427546:
> Breonna Taylor: US police charged over shooting death
> Four US police officers have been arrested and charged over the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.
That happened a month an a half ago.
What's that got to do with the actual point here, which is privacy that's infeasible through purely physical means can be implemented through legal means?
As an aside, tech people can be annoying black and white sometimes, and do things like misinterpret imperfect solutions as literally no solution at all. DNA is not going to be protected by all the buzzwords we use to describe encryption systems, but that doesn't mean it can't be protected.
None of them have been charged with breaking into her house or shooting her.
You're missing the point.
> Technically they can do it legally. Few years back in Kansas City (iirc), some guy was basically prank calling the police on a gamer, but got the wrong house, police just knocked on the door. No weapon. Killed some the dad, and walked. No repercussions at all for the police. The prank caller got like 5-10 I think, as he should. But there's something wrong when somebody dies by cop and they are unarmed and don't serve time.
It sounds like that was a mistake on the part of police. I was not talking about "SWATings gone wrong" or anything like that. I was talking about deliberately killing someone just because you can.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/us-justificati...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...
Anyone deemed to be "part of the forces of an enemy" may be targeted.
Now the government has the explicit authority to kill citizens.
e.g. how the Golden State killer was finally found, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo#Arrest_a...
Your DNA is fundamentally public information.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c...
We aren't there yet. That's still an important fact, when determining the legality of how DNA is used.
There's no need to do that amount of genetic testing to determine a person's potential when the zip code they grew up in will suffice.
It's only the same in the way that "A stranger comes to town" is a description of every single movie ever made.
If you want overt zipcode inequality then In Time is a better match. (but much lesser of a movie)
I was merely being tongue in cheek about the modern reality of class inequality.
However, inefficient distribution of data and legalities of its use have deeply slowed widespread use.
The future we should fear is one with an efficient and interconnected government, capable of pulling a DNA match out of a database five government agencies removed, on the side of the highway…
Mix this with some dystopian social credit system where you get points for reporting the littlest offense to big brother, and some more spying tools to spy on our own people and we literally get thought police. Soon it'll be 1984 IRL.
I don't plan on being criminal, but what's legal today could be criminal tomorrow, or what's legal in one city might not be in another, etc. I don't think we're there yet, but the future could turn all shades of bad if we don't get upset over privacy violations now.